The Survivors

by Jane Harper

  He had been draining his beer and feeling, as he always had in those first couple of years, exhausted by everything. Tired of his studies, of friends that were no more than acquaintances, of the effort of opening his eyes every morning and shutting them every night. Of life in general. The fog had grown so thick, he’d become used to navigating his days half-blind.

  ‘Yep, sounds about right,’ the campus doctor had said matter-of-factly when Kieran had been forced to make an appointment after repeatedly falling asleep in lectures. ‘Mental overload. Pretty common post-trauma. Feel like sleep’s the only time you get a proper break from yourself?’ He’d tapped his teeth and considered. ‘Maybe think about giving the counselling another crack? Fresh pair of eyes might help.’

  Kieran had left the clinic with a couple of numbers and reluctantly gone to the bar, where a few girls had tried to give him a couple more. What he’d really wanted was to go home and sleep, but it was someone’s birthday – he couldn’t remember whose – and the blokes on his course were already giving him shit for never coming out. He bought one drink and nursed it, pretending it was his third or fourth.

  He’d finally reached the point where he felt he could put his empty bottle down on the counter and leave quietly without saying goodbye, when someone had stepped out of the Friday-night crowd and into his path.

  ‘Kieran?’

  He had blinked at the woman in front of him. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Hi.’ She touched her collarbone. ‘Mia Sum.’

  She’d had a straight blunt fringe and glasses back then that gave her a kind of pretty geek-girl vibe, and she was wearing a short black dress that he’d later learned she considered lucky. What he’d thought was iced water in her hand turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant vodka cocktail of her own invention that years later she still referred to as Mia’s Mayhem.

  ‘I used to live in Evelyn Bay,’ Mia had added when the recognition was slow to dawn amid the chaos of the bar. ‘I was –’ She hesitated now. ‘I was Gabby’s friend?’

  She said the name clearly, which Kieran found interesting. Most people tended to lower their voices at the mention of poor here-then-gone Gabby Birch.

  Mia had seemed a little reluctant to elaborate, but she didn’t need to. Kieran had placed her by then, and was instead struggling to reconcile the shy girl he barely remembered with the woman standing in front of him.

  He knew he was thinking of the right person, though, because there hadn’t been many – or, indeed, any – other half-Singaporean girls living in Evelyn Bay when Kieran was a teenager. But the Mia Sum he remembered had been four years younger than him and always seemed to be rushing past his house to or from a piano lesson. Kieran wasn’t sure he’d have recalled even that much about her except, as Mia had said, she’d been best friends with Gabby, and after the storm everyone remembered a lot more about Gabrielle Birch than they’d ever seemed to before.

  He knew Mia’s parents had upped and moved the family to Sydney as soon as they had been given the green light by police, which had seemed like a pretty good idea to Kieran, both then and now.

  Mia was still looking at him in the bar, a tiny frown forming. ‘Kieran, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he’d said automatically.

  She was jostled by someone trying to reach the bar, but held her ground. ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just not here.’

  He was sick of this place and, unexpectedly, that actually sounded good. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Okay.’

  They had stepped out into the warm city air and walked a little way until Mia had pointed to a bench, where they’d sat surrounded by litter and a patch of dead grass and the sounds of Sydney after dark. They’d avoided the one old subject they had in common and instead talked about other things – city life, Kieran’s internship at the physio clinic that could probably lead to a job if he managed to make it to graduation, Mia’s biology degree and the subtly racist lab partner she was stuck with until the end of the year – until Mia had stretched and checked her phone.

  ‘It’s late,’ she’d said. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Already?’ Kieran had glanced at his watch and been surprised by the time.

  ‘Yeah. Besides –’ Mia had looked up at him from underneath her fringe. ‘You’ve probably got an early start tomorrow, haven’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She smiled. ‘You just look like the kind of guy who hits the gym pretty hard on a Saturday morning.’

  ‘Not the gym.’ He’d said it before he could help himself. ‘I go swimming.’

  She had blinked. ‘Do you really?’ The flirtatious tone dissolved in an instant and a look of sad surprise flashed across her face. She had sat back down on the bench and put a warm hand on his back. ‘Oh, Kieran.’

  Kieran sat on the beach now, years later but somehow still back in Evelyn Bay, and reached across the sand and took her hand. She’d grown out the fringe a while ago and swapped to contacts, and he wasn’t sure what had happened to the black dress. She still enjoyed the occasional Mia’s Mayhem, but now it was usually whipped up in their tiny kitchen and served in a tumbler from the cupboard. Life had a quieter rhythm now and he was still a little surprised how much he liked it. Nights in and not minding when the other person meant to smile but yawned instead.

  ‘Sorry.’ She covered her mouth quickly as the wind blew her hair across her face. ‘You ready to go back? I’m so –’ She yawned again.

  ‘I know. Me too.’

  They stood, dusting off the sand. Ahead, the beach stretched out in shadow. Kieran’s parents’ house was only a ten-minute walk along the shoreline but he felt Mia look into the night and hesitate.

  ‘Go back along the road?’ he said, and she nodded.

  They stopped under a lamppost where the sandy path hit the tarmac of Beach Road and held the fence for balance as they put their shoes back on. There was no official pavement, but no traffic either, and they walked side by side along the makeshift nature strip that lined the front of the beachside cottages. Most of the homes lay in sleeping darkness, with only the occasional glow from a front window. The houses blocked the view of the water, but Kieran could hear it lapping against the shore.

  ‘Hey, what did you make of Liv and Ash as a couple?’ Mia asked suddenly.

  Kieran considered, picturing them earlier at the Surf and Turf. There was something about Ash and Olivia together that he’d found a little hard to get a read on. It could just be history, he knew. A lot of water had flowed under that bridge, for all of them. But they’d also had the faintly combative edge that some couples seemed to enjoy, but that Kieran personally found exhausting, even as a spectator.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, meaning it. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I just hope he doesn’t mess her around.’

  He won’t, Kieran was about to say, then stopped. It was Ash. He might.

  ‘Did you notice the way –?’ Mia started, then stopped, hearing the low rumble at the same time as Kieran did.

  He realised what it was a split second before the car tore around the corner, the rumble becoming a roar as it careered towards them, headlights on full beam.

  ‘Shit, watch out.’

  Kieran put his arm out for Mia, but she was already off the road, the small of her back pressed against someone’s garden fence. He felt the rush of wind as the car shrieked past, shrill and bright in the still of the night. It hadn’t come close to touching them, but Kieran’s heart was pumping and his head tingled with a rush of blood. He could feel Mia’s pulse pounding against his arm. He pictured Audrey sleeping in her cot at home, and thought about what could have happened, and felt faintly sick.

  They watched the car race down the road, the red tail-lights blinking smaller until it turned another corner and disappeared
completely. It had come and gone in seconds, and the only sounds once more were their breathing and the gentle breaking of waves.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Mia laughed with relief. ‘What’s worth rushing for around here? There’s literally nothing in this town that can’t wait.’

  ‘I know. You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, it was just a surprise.’

  They walked on. A few lights were glowing in Fisherman’s Cottage as they passed, but Kieran’s parents’ house was completely dark as they crept up the driveway. He let them in, nearly tripping over the stack of moving boxes piled in the hallway. Mia went straight through to check on Audrey, who was sound asleep in her travel cot in the corner of Kieran’s old bedroom. The door to his parents’ room was closed but Verity had left a note detailing how much formula Audrey had taken, which Mia glanced over while Kieran undressed.

  Within ten minutes they were both in bed, the adrenalin spike from earlier having worn off, leaving behind only cloudy exhaustion. Mia was half-asleep even as she was saying good night. Outside Kieran’s window, he could hear the swell of the sea.

  He closed his eyes and slept, thick and heavy. He stirred only once when, somewhere deep within his dream, he heard the sound of a door slam.

  Chapter 5

  Kieran was alone when he opened his eyes, squinting against the morning light beaming through a crack in the blind. The bedding on Mia’s side had been thrown back and the sheets were cold. He raised his head and could see that Audrey’s cot was empty.

  The skirt and top Mia had laid out last night on the chair were gone. Kieran hadn’t heard her get up. He sighed and lay back, feeling both guilty and relieved. Along with the night feeds, Audrey had been starting her day before dawn for the past month and they tried to take it in turns to get up. He was pretty sure – certain, actually – that it was his go. He checked the time. After eight. No wonder he felt unusually rested. As a father – the phrase still sounded foreign to him – that counted as a luxuriously late start.

  Kieran got out of bed and pulled on his board shorts and a t-shirt. His phone showed a text from Mia, sent earlier to say she was going out to avoid waking the whole house. He texted her back. Okay.

  Out in the hall, he stopped as his bare feet crunched against the floorboards. He looked down. A light layer of sand trailed across the wood. It had been walked through at least once, the scuff marks still visible.

  Had he and Mia brought that in last night? He could see his shoes where he had left them inside the front door, but he knew how the sand got everywhere. A broom and dustpan were propped clumsily against a wall, seemingly abandoned mid-task. From the kitchen, Kieran could hear his parents’ muffled voices. He listened, but couldn’t hear Mia, or Audrey for that matter. They must still be out.

  Kieran reached for the broom. It wasn’t a big job, and as he emptied the dustpan into the bathroom bin a minute or two later, he grabbed an old beach towel. If he was going to swim, now was as good a time as any. He didn’t like to miss a day, and rarely had in twelve years, since the very first doctor at the hospital in Hobart had issued her stark warning.

  Kieran hadn’t caught her name, but she’d come into his room, put down her clipboard and pulled up the visitor’s chair. She’d had short grey hair and the careworn face of someone who had seen it all before and could do without seeing it all again.

  ‘All right. Listen close,’ she said. Kieran had been admitted less than twenty-four hours earlier and was still feeling shell-shocked. ‘Because this is important.’

  Kieran, lungs still heavy and aching, had tried to concentrate.

  ‘All this –’ She’d waved her pen at his body. ‘This will all heal. You’re going to be fine. So what I need you to do is focus on your head. Because that sends people back here more often than you want to know.’

  The doctor had let that sink in before she spoke again.

  ‘People can react badly when they don’t know how to react to something. That’s true for everyone, but men in particular can very quickly find themselves in places they don’t want to be. I’m talking aggression, I’m talking family problems, heavy drinking –’ She had ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Drugs, sex stuff, prostitutes, violent porn. And you, Kieran –’

  He had stared at her. ‘Me, what?’

  ‘A guy like you – what are you, eighteen? In a situation like this? You are a prime candidate for that, my friend. Prime.’ The doctor’s tone softened. ‘That could be you. Easily. So I want you to make sure it isn’t. Do not let yourself get sideswiped by this, all right? There’s going to be a lot to deal with emotionally, so be prepared. You need some sort of release that’s not going to end up with you dead or miserable or in jail. So take me seriously when I say this: find something positive that helps.’

  The same day he was released from hospital, Kieran had followed Verity into their house, dropped his bag and walked down the hallway and straight out of the back door. He had stripped down to his shorts, plunged into the sea and swum and swum and swum.

  He opened the hall cupboard now to put the broom back, and slowed as he passed the next bedroom along. It had once belonged to his older brother, Finn, but at some point Kieran and his parents had simply started referring to it as the ‘other’ room.

  Other room was about right. Since Finn died, Brian and Verity had tried using the space variously as a home office and a gym. They never said it out loud, but Kieran guessed they didn’t find it easy to spend time in there because for the last few years it had become essentially a storage space. It was packed full of belongings they hardly ever needed, which offered the dual benefit of keeping the room both in use and rarely visited.

  The door was ajar now, though, and Kieran used a finger to push it open. It looked almost as he expected, with the addition of flat-packed cardboard boxes stacked against the walls, but he stopped when he saw that the spare bed nestled amid the clutter had been made up.

  The sheets had been tucked in without much care. A dirty coffee mug stood next to the bed, along with a book spread open to mark its page and Verity’s reading glasses perched on the spine. She must be sleeping there, at least some of the time. Kieran had never in his life known his parents to sleep apart. He looked at the bed now and wondered what to make of that.

  In the kitchen, he found Verity leaning forward in her seat, balancing a mouthful of cereal on a spoon. She was holding it out at face height, ignoring the milk that slopped over the edge and onto the tiled floor. At the other end of the spoon, Brian Elliott opened his mouth barely wide enough to speak.

  ‘I’ve had enough.’

  ‘You haven’t had anything at all yet.’ Verity glanced up as Kieran entered and pointed him towards the fresh coffee, before turning her attention back to her husband.

  Kieran’s parents had used to compete in local triathlons together. Four years ago, Brian had come second in the over-fifty category. Verity placed the edge of the spoon against her husband’s lips, coaxing them apart. He opened his mouth like a child.

  Kieran watched until eventually Verity looked over. ‘How was the Surf and Turf?’

  He shrugged. At the table, his dad refused a second mouthful. ‘It was fine. Have you seen Mia this morning?’

  ‘No. Eat please, Brian. She’s not here?’

  ‘She’s taken Audrey out.’ Kieran checked his phone. No new messages.

  He pulled out a kitchen chair and moved a box so he could sit down. The flap wasn’t sealed and as he looked inside, he stopped.

  In the box were some of his mother’s clothes, folded neatly next to what he could only describe as rotting household rubbish. The cream jumper Verity had knitted herself had a dark spatter across the front where a used teabag had bled out against the wool. A browning banana peel was tucked into the pocket of a pair of trousers.

  Kieran stared at the contents, then held out the box wordlessly. Verity barely glanced at it, shruggi
ng at his silent question.

  ‘He knows we’re moving.’ She turned back to Brian, breakfast bowl still in her hand. ‘He sees me packing and he wants to help, so he puts in whatever he can find.’ She ran an eye over the other boxes. ‘He’s done a few.’

  ‘This is dreadful.’

  Verity didn’t reply, just scooped up another mouthful of cereal.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You should have told me. Why didn’t you tell me it was like this?’

  ‘You have enough on. You’ve got Audrey now. Work.’ Verity looked him calmly in the eye. ‘I can manage your dad. It’s fine.’

  ‘It’s not. Mum? This is not fine at all. This is really bad.’

  ‘I can understand why you might be feeling that way.’

  And there it was, like clockwork. The active listening that Verity was so keen on.

  Kieran ignored it and tried again. ‘How long have you been sleeping in the other room?’

  ‘Not long. And only sometimes.’ Verity gave up on the cereal and stood to put the bowl in the sink. ‘He gets a bit restless at night.’

  They were talking about Brian as though he wasn’t there, Kieran realised. He wondered what Verity’s current online support group – he thought it was a fairly safe bet that she was part of one – would make of that.

  ‘It’s not too late to find somewhere in Sydney, Mum,’ he said. ‘For both of you.’

  ‘It is. And we’ve been through this.’

  ‘I know, but –’

  ‘Your dad would find an interstate move difficult.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’d get used to it eventually. And it’d be better for you. You wouldn’t have to do this on your own. Mia and I would be around. And Audrey. It could be a new start.’

  Verity didn’t answer, but Kieran thought he could guess what she was thinking. Verity Elliott did not want a new start. What she wanted was for things to be the way they used to be. She would never say that though, he knew. Sure enough, she took a sip of coffee and glanced at the beach towel draped over the back of Kieran’s chair.